Paying respects to two classic gaming developers
Retro-gaming fans were dealt a double blow in December 2023, when two well-respected UK game developers passed away. Anthony Taglione and Ross Goodley both crafted their love and skill for games in the early Eighties and went on to write some classic 8-bit and 16-bit titles.
Anthony Taglione was known as Tag to his close friends and work colleagues and is probably best remembered for the 16-bit RPGs Bloodwych and Legend, and later for kick-starting the Total War series on the PC for Creative Assembly. However, his catalogue of titles can be traced back to the very early Eighties and includes some memorable early games and conversions of well-known 8-bit games for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 for Incentive and Beyond Software. He was extremely talented and went into every project with gusto, often with a dry sense of humour and a twinkle in his eye. He was also quite happy to have a good argument if the need arose.
Anthony’s brother Philip was also a very astute games developer, writing several games including the ZX Spectrum conversion of Moon Cresta and Z80 versions of Bloodwych for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, before working on PlayStation titles and mobile games. He passed away in the summer of 2019. A full tribute to Anthony will be included alongside his final interview, as part of The Making of Alpha Storm article appearing in the next issue.
Ross Goodley’s first professional games were all written for the BBC Micro and were published by Sheffield-based Alligata Software in the early Eighties. After he wrote a conversion of Antony Crowther’s Commodore 64 game Blagger, he created Dambusters, Web Runner, and Neanderthal Man in quick succession. A handful of budget arcade games for another Sheffield-based publisher called Budgie followed soon afterwards, concentrating on games for the new Z80-based MSX and Amstrad CPC platforms.
Ross continued his working association with Antony on various games after their stints with Alligata and Budgie in Sheffield were over, including the fiendish puzzler Bombuzal for Mirrorsoft, collaborating with industry stalwart David Bishop. Antony wrote the Commodore version, and Ross handled the ST and Amiga versions. Ross went solo as The Wyvern for his next project, creating the 3D arcade and space strategy title Gravity, also published by Mirrorsoft under the Image Works label in 1990. His l
